Going Going Gone

The repairs are going well and some of the spots like the one under the  anchor roller are little shocking , the extent of damage and the size of the repair are quite different than what the original pictures showed. Here are some shots of the repairs in the rough out stage.

This is that area under the bow roller area, to get all the cracks out of that area Lehman has dug down almost a 1/2" in spots. 

This is that port rear vent area where the deep gouges and unused hardware used to be.



While Lehman works the repair spots I have decided to go shopping for parts that are on my list of stuff to get. One of the items on my list was a new deck hatch. The deck hatch in the main salon had never been opened and the hinges became frozen over time, I  soaked it with a WD-40 type material and slowly started to work it open and closed ever so slightly. It only took a few moments and the hinges gave out, well actually the frame broke. That's why I'm shopping for a hatch. My first stop looking for a hatch, the manufacturer, Taylor-Made. WOW !!! These people are proud of there stuff,
When I hung up the phone I was shaking my head , no way !!! The nice little girl in customer service had no problem telling me that a replacement hatch was $1995.00 plus the trim ring , plus the screen, and the shipping made the total $ 2650.00 and she could send it out to me today. I thanked her for her time and put on my shopping hat.

                                                      This is the hinge, it's done. 

I must have checked with 50 marine suppliers and none had any parts or a price that I was willing to pay. I even looked in EBAY , no listing for any products from Taylor-Made.  But the game changed real fast when I typed into Google " Deck Hatch Marine " , I got a truck load of leads and one of them was for a 20" Bomar deck hatch, at  first I dismissed it as it wouldn't match my other hatch. 
It was a shame too, that Bomar hatch had a  polished stainless frame and smoked glass It would have been a real sweet upgrade for my boat. "Oh !" I almost forgot the best part, the price. $300.00 

That's right $300.00 and man that was really kicking my ass good too. It was listed on Ebay and I must have went to that auction 50 times in two days, and then it was gone. As I frantically searched the auction board I swore to myself that if I could find another one that was that good of buy I would go for it, even if it was a different brand . About a day later the same hatch popped back up in a new auction, Man I'm in heaven so I sent the seller a message inquiring about shipping and the buy it now price of $300.00, What happened next was simply golden. His return message directed me to call his store in Fla. for details and I happily complied but during the conversation about shipping he casually said "Its a shame you don't want both of them the shipping would be almost the same". I said BOTH?. He said yea "I have two didn't I tell you that?" I casually said well what do you want for the pair? He said make me an offer, I said $ 500.00 , he said deal. I darn near choked.  I was pretty nervous waiting for the UPS guy to bring those hatches, the price was so right, something had to be wrong with them. I had myself convinced of the worst. Several days later  UPS dropped off the hatches and they are beautiful, not a mark on them, never been installed, virtually brand new in the box with the tags still on them. 

                                               That's a nice upgrade and worth the effort !

Lehman is nearing gel coat time and the repairs are looking very nice, The next photos are just before gel coat and buffing.  

This photo shows that bow roller area in final glaze before sanding and gel coating , this was by far the worst area we had repaired on the boat. My next post will have shots of the finished areas. 

Little John's Marine Service has been selected to fabricate the aluminum swim platform 
and we have set a start date and ordered materials. 


Next up : My new friend is a Pirate , ARGH !!